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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



371 



three orders, and order is changed into confusion. Let him attempt 

 to combine the purity and perfectness of the Grecian features of de- 

 sign, with those of any other style of architecture, and he will be 

 made at once to acknowledge that the beauty of Greek design de- 

 pends upon its purity, the perfect consistency of all its parts, and their 

 unity of expression. A Grecian building is one thought, one full har- 

 mony: to catch its expression, it must be unmodulated, unaltered, un- 

 alterable. To effectuate this, the architect cannot dare to depart from 

 the known proportions used by the Greeks themselves, until he has 

 discovered tlie law from which those proportions originate. Until he 

 makes this discovery, the Greek models he must continue to copy, 

 line for line, he must measure every moulding with the most slavish 

 accuracy. Let his design differ in the least particular, the charge of 

 ignorance or presumption may be raised at once against him, and that 

 too, his own good sense will acknowledge with perfect justice. 



What too can the modern architect do with the Gothic \ Can he 

 improve upon this style as manifested in some of the old cathedrals 

 of the middle ages ? As well might he attempt to revive the feudal 

 tenure, to raise another crusade, or re-establish the institution of 

 chivalry. He can do little in the Gothic except to study the won- 

 derful science of its construction, the exquisite beauty and melody of 

 its details, the picturesque effect of its arrangements, and beneath the 

 vault of its o'erhanging roof, or looking round at the clustered co- 

 lumns, the glowing windows, and the saintly shrines, bow down in 

 mute wonder at the genius that could project, and the science and 

 skill that could execute such a miracle of beauty. 



The utmost perfection to which an architect can now attain in the 

 Gothic style falls immeasurably short of the excellence of the olden 

 time, neither can rce ever expect to see the day in which such struc- 

 tures as the cathedrals, castles and mansions of the middle ages shall 

 be needed. Modern gothie, or the manner in which Gothic architec- 

 ture has been latterly revived and applied to the uses of modem 

 times, has brought upon the profession such merited derision and 

 contempt, that we need not fear an universal adoption of this style at 

 the present day, however much it has been denuded and brought 

 down to a bare-bone state, to suit the economical display-loving spirit 

 of the age. Still the architect who wishes to bring about a new era 

 in architecture must study the remains of this last great style, in order 

 to see manifested in it, those universal principles of truth which are 

 the tests of the excellence of all styles, principles which are discon- 

 nected with that idiosyncracy which constitutes a style, principles 

 by which the architect must be governed in the formation of any new 

 one. 



Since, then, Grecian and Gothic architecture as styles exist, in an 

 unimprovable condition, so that perfection in them depends upon 

 accuracy in copying existing forms and details, which copying can 

 never raise architecture from its present state of degeneracy, seeing 

 that this same copying has been tried for 300 years, the architect 

 must now take some other method of resuscitating it. He must infuse 

 some principle of organization into the very elements of its being, 

 the ultimate atoms (if we may so express it), of architecture niust be 

 transfused into some medium where they may arrange themselves 

 according to some law of affinity which must exist among them. 



Among the different modes of architecture that are at present in 

 use, it appears to us, that there is but one in which an architect, to be 

 great, must use the principles of its comtruction only, without adhering 

 to the details of any model. This is what is called the Roman style, 

 that which is distinguished by the use of the semi-circular arch and 

 the dome. The people to whom the invention of these modes of build- 

 ing is generally attributed, were prevented, by many reasons, from 

 formin g them into an architectural style, notwithstanding the fact of 

 their great capability of being so formed. Possessing little artistic 

 genius themselves, the Romans had the good sense to reverence its 

 manifestations among other nations. They acknowledged the supre- 

 macy of Grecian taste, and admitted the unrivalled excellence of 

 Grecian architecture. The Greeks were then their teachers in this 

 art, but unfortunately, at a period when tlie life and liberty of Grecian 

 art was but a name ; the consequence of ail this was, that instead of 



the Roman arch being used as a legitimate architectural feature, 

 bearing the same relation in a building to the part it supports as a 

 Grecian column does to its entablature, it was used as a mere clement 

 of construction, or as a fanciful form for an opening in a facade, while 

 in that same fayade v>'ere placed the horizontal lines of a Grecian 

 entablature, with its own appropriate columns. Thus, two forms of 

 support were used in the same building, to perform the same office, 

 and an architectural pleonasm engendered, whose progeny exists even 

 to this day. That Grecian columns and entablatures could not long 

 preserve their character in such association was soon made evident. 

 The Romans wanted to increase the height of their buildings beyond 

 Grecian proportions, the use of the arch permitted them to build 

 story upon story, and in so doing, every story was accommodated with 

 its own string of entablature, and its own columns. When the story 

 was too high and the space between the arches too small for the due 

 proportion of a Grecian column, by the invention of pedestals, the 

 columns were mounted upon stilts to stretch them out sufficiently, 

 and we thus see Grecian architecture entirely passed away and 

 nothing worthy of the name of a new style substituted in its place, 

 where nevertheless an architecture could have risen, for the germ of 

 a glorious architecture is there. 



It seems to have been the peculiar fate of the semi-circular arch, 

 in its different development as a constructive feature, to have failed 

 entirely in creating a distinctive style of architecture, founded upon 

 its use, and characterized by individual features, resulting from its 

 use alone. Kot only did this principle of construction fail of a per- 

 fect development among the Romans, by whom it was first, as far as 

 we know, extensively used, but at a later period, when, in what is 

 called the Norman style, it seems just arousing itself and coming 

 forth with a freshness and vigor that shows the promise of a new and 

 appropriate style, its progress, by some fatality, was cut short, and all 

 the energy manifested in it turned into a new channel opened by the 

 introduction of the pointed arch. Had this latter never been invented, 

 and had the same genius which produced such a wonderful architec- 

 ture from this modification of the arch brought its powers to bear upon 

 the semi-circular form of construction, may we not with propriety be- 

 lieve that a style would have arisen out of this latter curve as magni- 

 ficent and sublime as the Gothic, and when we look at what has been 

 produced in this case, is there not something in the fact to tempt tlie 

 aspiring architect to study out, and aid the more perfect development 

 of the semi-circular arch. 



A style of architecture in which the semi-circular ar(Ji shall be 

 used may combine in perfect harmony with every element of con- 

 struction which has been developed, in all ages past. It may call into 

 use the wall, the column, and the buttress ; columns not necessarily 

 Grecian, walls no longer Egyptian, buttresses not of necessity Gothie 

 — a mode of architecture, which, while it may admit the utmost gor- 

 geousness of ornament, expensiveness of material, solidity and dura- 

 bility of construction, with vastness of magnitude, may yet be beau- 

 tiful in its simplicity, and by the manifest use of all its parts, be satis- 

 factory to the mind which desires sense, with utility and unpretend- 

 ingness — a unique mode of architecture, suitable alike for the palace 

 and the cottage, the church and the theatre, the villa and the home of 

 the citizen, the light pavilion of pleasure, and the gloomy portal of a 

 prison — in short an architecture which will take its character from the 

 use to which it is applied, and which can be judged by no rules but 

 those arising from common sense, perfected judgment, and refined 

 taste. 



In such a style the arch must have its own place in a building as 

 the support of the shelter, and to the shelter, as its appropriate form, 

 must be given the shape of the dome, so as to appear to have, and to 

 have indeed, some relation to that on which it rests. A foundation 

 too must be provided on which the supports sh,.ll stand, of some just 

 proportion ; the entrances and openings must all be arranged in sym- 

 metry with the whole ; an architectural beau ideal, in fine, must be 

 formed, for the realization of which we shall search Rome in vain. 



In using thus the semi-circular arch, that is, in combining it with 

 other elements of construction, it will be necessary that it should hold 



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